Nallapureddy Prasanna Kumar Reddy, former minister is the candidate who will contest on behalf of Jaganmohan Reddy's party. He earlier contested for TDP and later resigned from the party to contest for Jagan's party.

A complaint was lodged with the Election Commission that Sakshi was running reports in favour of Prasanna, while criticising his opponents by the TDP.

"The reports were in gross violation of the ECI guidelines and Representation of People's Act, 1951," said TDP vice-president E Peddi Reddy.

A committee to look into the "paid news" matter has been set up by Chief electoral officer Bhanwarlal.

"In case, it is proved that it was indeed paid news, the committee would add an amount equal to the advertisement tariff to the election expenditure of the candidate in question," he said.